Part 1
Chapter 6

"ACCORDING to the most authentic records, my
dear children," said Grandfather, "the
chair, about this time, had the misfortune to
break its leg. It was probably on account of this
accident that it ceased to be the seat of the
governors of Massachusetts; for, assuredly, it
would have been ominous of evil to the
commonwealth if the chair of state had tottered
upon three legs. Being therefore sold at
auction,--alas what a vicissitude for a chair that had
figured in such high company--our venerable
friend was knocked down to a certain Captain John
Hull. This old gentleman, on carefully
examining the maimed chair, discovered that its
broken leg might be clamped with iron and made as
serviceable as ever.

"Here is the very leg
that was broken." exclaimed Charley,
throwing himself down on the floor to look at it.
"And here are the iron clamps. How well it
was mended!"

When they had all sufficiently
examined the broken leg, Grandfather told them a
story about Captain John Hull and

THE PINE-TREE SHILLINGS.

The Captain John Hull aforesaid was the
mint-master of Massachusetts, and coined all the money
that was made there. This was a new line of
business; for, in the earlier days of the colony,
the current coinage consisted of gold and silver
money of England, Portugal, and Spain. These
coins being scarce, the people were often forced
to barter their commodities instead of selling
them.

For instance, if a man wanted to buy a
coat, he perhaps exchanged a bear-skin for it.
If he wished for a barrel of molasses, he might
purchase it with a pile of pine boards.
Musket-bullets were used instead of farthings.
The Indians had a sort of money, called wampum,
which was made of clam-shells; and this strange
sort of specie was likewise taken in payment of
debts by the English settlers. Bank-bills had
never been heard of. There was not money enough
of any kind, in many parts of the country, to pay
the salaries of the ministers; so that they
sometimes had to take quintals of fish, bushels of
corn, or cords of wood, instead of silver or
gold.

As the people grew more numerous, and their
trade one with another increased, the want of
current money was still more sensibly felt. To
supply the demand, the General Court passed a law
for establishing a coinage of shillings,
sixpences, and threepences. Captain John Hull was
appointed to manufacture this money, and was to
have about one shilling out of every twenty to pay
him for the trouble of making them.

Hereupon all
the old silver in the colony was handed over to
Captain John Hull. The battered silver cans and
tankards, I suppose, and silver buckles, and
broken spoons, and silver buttons of worn-out coats,
and silver hilts of swords that had figured at
court,--all such curious old articles were
doubtless thrown into the melting-pot together.
But by far the greater part of the silver
consisted of bullion from the mines of South
America, which the English buccaneers--who
were little better than pirates--had taken from
the Spaniards, and brought to Massachusetts.

All this old and new silver being melted down and
coined, the result was an immense amount of
splendid shillings, sixpences, and threepences.
Each had the date, 1652, on the one side, and the
figure of a pine-tree on the other. Hence they
were called pine-tree shillings. And for every
twenty shillings that he coined, you will
remember, Captain John Hull was entitled to put
one shilling into his own pocket.

The magistrates
soon began to suspect that the mint-master would
have the best of the bargain. They offered him
a large sum of money if he would but give up that
twentieth shilling which he was continually
dropping into his own pocket. But Captain Hull
declared himself perfectly satisfied with the
shilling. And well he might be; for so diligently
did he labor, that, in a few years, his pockets,
his money-bags, and his strong box were
overflowing with pine-tree shillings. This was
probably the case when he came into possession of
Grandfather's chair; and, as he had worked so hard
at the mint, it was certainly proper that he
should have a comfortable chair to rest himself
in.

When the mint-master had grown very rich, a
young man, Samuel Sewell by name, came a-courting
to his only daughter. His daughter--whose name I
do not know, but we will call her Betsey--was a
fine, hearty damsel, by no means so slender as
some young ladies of our own days. On the
contrary, having always fed heartily on
pumpkin-pies, doughnuts, Indian puddings, and
other Puritan dainties, she was as round and plump
as a pudding herself. With this round, rosy Miss
Betsey did Samuel Sewell fall in love. As he
was a young man of good character, industrious in
his business, and a member of the church, the
mint-master very readily gave his consent.

"Yes, you may take her," said he, in his
rough way, "and you'll find her a heavy burden
enough!"

On the wedding day, we may suppose that
honest John Hull dressed himself in a plum-colored
coat, all the buttons of which were made of
pine-tree shillings. The buttons of his waistcoat
were sixpences; and the knees of his small-clothes
were buttoned with silver threepences. Thus
attired, he sat with great dignity in
Grandfather's chair; and, being a portly old
gentleman, he completely filled it from elbow to
elbow. On the opposite side of the room, between
her bridemaids, sat Miss Betsey. She was blushing
with all her might, and looked like a full-blown
peony, or a great red apple.

There, too, was the
bridegroom, dressed in a fine purple coat and
gold-lace waistcoat, with as much other finery as
the Puritan laws and customs would allow him to
put on. His hair was cropped close to his head,
because Governor Endicott had forbidden any man to
wear it below the ears. But he was a very
personable young man; and so thought the
bridemaids and Miss Betsey herself.

The mint-master also was pleased with his new
son-in-law; especially as he had courted Miss Betsey
out of pure love, and had said nothing at all
about her portion. So, when the marriage ceremony
was over, Captain Hull whispered a word to two of
his men-servants, who immediately went out, and
soon returned, lugging in a large pair of scales.
They were such a pair as wholesale merchants use
for weighing bulky commodities; and quite a bulky
commodity was now to be weighed in them.

"Daughter Betsey," said the
mint-master, "get into one side of these
scales."

Miss Betsey--or Mrs. Sewell, as we
must now call her--did as she was bid, like a
dutiful child, without any question of the why and
wherefore. But what her father could mean, unless
to make her hushand pay for her by the pound (in
which case she would have been a dear bargain),
she had not the least idea.

"And now,"
said honest John Hull to the servants, "bring
that box hither."

The box to which the
mint-master pointed was a huge, square, iron-bound,
oaken chest; it was big enough, my children, for
all four of you to play at hide-and-seek in. The
servants tugged with might and main, but could not
lift this enormous receptacle, and were finally
obliged to drag it across the floor. Captain Hull
then took a key from his girdle, unlocked the
chest, and lifted its ponderous lid. Behold!
it was full to the brim of bright pine-tree
shillings, fresh from the mint; and Samuel Sewell
began to think that his father-in-law had got
possession of all the money in the Massachusetts
treasury. But it was only the mint-master's honest
share of the coinage.

Then the servants, at
Captain Hull's command, heaped double handfuls of
shillings into one side of the scales, while
Betsey remained in the other. Jingle, jingle,
went the shillings, as handful after handful was
thrown in, till, plump and ponderous as she was,
they fairly weighed the young lady from the floor.

"There, son Sewell! " cried the honest
mint-master, resuming his seat in Grandfather's
chair, "take these shillings for my
daughter's portion. Use her kindly, and thank
Heaven for her. It is not every wife that's
worth her weight in silver!"

The children laughed heartily at this legend, and
would hardly be convinced but that Grandfather had
made it out of his own head. He assured them
faithfully, however, that he had found it in the
pages of a grave historian, and had merely tried
to tell it in a somewhat funnier style. As for
Samuel Sewell, he afterwards became chief justice
of Massachusetts.

"Well, Grandfather,"
remarked Clara, "if wedding portions nowadays
were paid as Miss Betsey's was, young ladies would
not pride themselves upon an airy figure, as many
of them do."